Gamification is an underutilized element in instructional design

1. REVIEW
Gamification is an underutilized element in instructional design, but it's crucial to engaging
today's learners and enabling content mastery. In this course, professor, instructional game designer, and
author Karl Kapp lays the foundations of the theory, provides examples of gamification in three real-
world learning scenarios, and breaks down the dynamics of gamification (aka what makes games fun!):
escape, collection, discovery, pattern recognition, and other risk/reward activities. Plus, learn to put the
different elements of gamification—from setting goals to providing multidimensional feedback and
leveling up—to work for your classroom. If you don't have experience gaming, don't worry. Professor
Kapp focuses on gamification as a design sensibility, making the principles clear to gamers and
nongamers alike.
Welcome
Welcome to this course on gamification of learning and instruction. I'm Karl Kapp,
author of several books on games and gamification, a professor of instructional technology at
Bloomsburg University, and a co-principal investigator on several National Science Foundation
grants where we created video games for teaching science and engineering concepts. This course
highlights the different types of gamification formats you might want to use in your design of
engaging and exciting instruction. Most of the formats will be familiar to anyone who has played
games.
But if you haven't, your first assignment is to go play some online games. I've provided a list and
a worksheet to help you get started, and to help you thing about games from an instructional
perspective. Also to be discussed are common game elements that can be incorporated both
online, as well as in classroom instruction. These elements can be used separately or in
combination to create a gamified learning event. Above all, this course is designed to help you
understand that gamification is more of a design sensibility than a technology tool.
Certainly technology can play a large role in gamification, but you don't need technology to
create a gamified learning experience. So let's